


no matter how they toss the dice (it had to be)

by amessofgaywords



Category: Dracula (TV 2013)
Genre: F/F, a gratuitous amount of flowers and their meanings, in which lucy is a florist and mina is confused, jonathon deserves better in this but alas, these two fluffy idiots fell in love at first sight, westenray endgame, westenray imagine me and you au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:55:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21647911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amessofgaywords/pseuds/amessofgaywords
Summary: They are suspended like that, in a shared breath, for only a heartbeat; it feels oddly like eternity.Then the girl’s father is tugging her insistently down the aisle, and the moment breaks.or a westenray imagine me and you au.
Relationships: Mina Murray/Lucy Westenra
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	no matter how they toss the dice (it had to be)

**Author's Note:**

> the concept creeped into my head and i couldn't let it go. i've used the general plot and certain lines from the original movie, but filled in some spaces with my own scenes. i just felt like the characters applied really well to this world.
> 
> title from, of course, happy together by the turtles.

Lucy Westenra is singularly, well and truly screwed.

She’s got a wedding in (oh _bollocks_ ) half an hour now, and so far she’s got a water stain on her only nice jacket, crushed dahlias, and an increasing urge to scream every time the back of her car refuses to close over the heaps of flower arrangements haphazardly shoved into the back of it.

She can practically hear her mother’s voice dripping with superiority, all _oh, Lucy, you really had to go and waste your life as a florist, didn’t you,_ and while her constitution would implore her to snap back _yes, Mother, I am a florist, and I love it, so there,_ it’s times like these when she can’t help but wonder if she has a point. She’s late, she’s only a small step away from soaked in dirty water, and she’s fairly sure the poor father of the bride is going to give her an awful review.

The drive to the venue, a nice church just outside of the city, is nothing short of panic attack after panic attack, as Lucy frets over whether she forgot the peonies (she didn’t), whether her pants are absolutely full of holes (they aren’t), and if her shitty little car will go faster than a two miles per hour down the motorway (it won’t, but she isn’t really to blame for that one). All told, by the time she pulls into the gravelly carpark and begins the tedious process of lugging tons of flowers up to the chapel, she’s just about reached the highest level of stress a human could probably achieve.

The groom, blissfully, is nice, though his best man, who hits on her unashamedly while she pins on his corsage, is less so. The bride’s father, who introduces himself with a firm handshake as Dr. William Murray, is jovial, if a bit scatterbrained, and he invites her to watch the ceremony with the family if she has the time. She does, but sticking around for the wedding of someone she hasn’t even met yet seems a bit unorthodox, not to mention creepy, and Lucy intends on getting out of there as soon as humanly possible. 

Fate is really against her today.

“Damn it all to hell!” Lucy whisper-screams through the stems in her mouth as she does her very best to trim back some stray calla lilies. The ceremony begins in two minutes, if her watch is to be believed, and the chapel is slowly but steadily filling up with people. She can hear Jonathon, the groom, and his blonde friend chatting up by the front, and she even thinks she hears her name in there, but before she can think much on it, a loud noise starts up from somewhere above her and it’s made abundantly clear that she needs to get out of there, _fast,_ calla lilies be damned.

Hurriedly shoving chopped stems into her belt, Lucy makes for the exit, praying to any deity listening she doesn’t run into the bride and hold up the whole shebang. Her invocations, however, are unfounded, because a shimmering woman is gliding down the aisle in a dress that looks as if it were cut from a cloud.

She really is stunning. Full lips, a smooth jawline, and luminescent blue eyes stand out from her face, and her cheeks are framed by soft-looking, rebellious chestnut curls threatening to spill from their complicated updo. Her bright white dress is simple, sleeveless, almost sheer lace at the top, transitioning into a modest bodice and full skirt tapering out at her waist. She looks every inch the perfect bride, and Lucy can hardly tear her eyes away.

It’s a problem, her and pretty girls. One her mother, general London society, and endless heterosexual men have attempted to beat out of her, and one she’s stubbornly retained. For moments such as now, it seems, when the bride’s eyes turn just slightly and catch her own, and it’s as if time itself stops.

The bride’s lips part ever so slightly, and she blinks a few times, as if the sight of Lucy surprises her. Lucy, for her part, can only stop her this-side-of-frantic movements and stare as the heavenly girl furrows her brow, as if she’s trying to make sense of something. The movement is endlessly cute for a reason Lucy can’t quite place.

They are suspended like that, in a shared breath, for only a heartbeat; it feels oddly like eternity.

Then the girl’s father is tugging her insistently down the aisle, and the moment breaks. Lucy sighs, deep and resolving, and heads back to her car, trying futilely to focus on arrangements for the reception rather than what the bride would look like when she smiled.

\---

Despite the earlier hiccups, Lucy feels confident the reception, at least the floral part of it, is going swimmingly. The flowers have all been wrangled, the weather is holding up, and no guests have begun sneezing horribly or breaking out in hives, so Lucy would say she’s had a job well done. In fact, the reception has been going on for almost an hour, and for some reason, Lucy hasn’t left. She has an order to fill for tomorrow, probably paperwork to fill out, and it can’t possibly be proper to hang around a wedding you weren’t even invited to for this long, but she’s yet to find a reason to leave.

A hidden, _very inappropriate_ part of her mind whispers that she wants to be able to just catch a glimpse of the bride before she goes. The bride whose name she doesn’t even know. 

_Tone down the lesbian, Lucy. There are children present._

Not having a seat (since she was never really invited), Lucy wanders the roomy tent during hors d’oeuvres. Everyone seems to be having a lovely time. The groom looks glowingly happy, and for some reason it makes her sick, so she meanders towards the drinks table and makes to get some punch.

Standing in front of the glass bowl is the bride, smoothing down the front of her dress with shaking hands, smiling bright and warm at anyone who passes. Her hair looks a little looser, and her lipstick is just slightly smudged, probably from her new husband’s kisses, and for some reason, this makes Lucy move suddenly forward without much thought on her part.

Once in front of the girl, she’s at a bit of a loss for words. She’s even lovelier up close, with soft, creamy skin and long, fluttery eyelashes. The bride smiles brightly, even though she has no idea who Lucy is. This doesn’t help with the no words problem.

“Hi,” Lucy says, on impulse, desperate to retain some of her composure.

“Hi,” the bride says back, and Lucy is probably reading far more into her slightly breathless tone than she should.

“I’m Lucy,” she says, gesturing uselessly to her own chest. “I did your flowers,” by way of explanation for why someone she’s never met before would be at this girl’s wedding.

“Did you?” the bride exclaims, emphatic. “My flowers are nice. Thank you.”

“Pleasure,” Lucy says, and there’s an awkward pause before the bride suddenly bursts out.

“Mina!” She shouts, and clarifies, heat filling her cheeks, “My name is Mina. Murray. Or, well, Harker now, I suppose.” She shuffles her feet, looking to the ground. “That might take some getting used to.”

Lucy very much would like to take this girl’s hand and run away with her, and a thought of such an… intense variety startles her. She deflects with humor, the only way she knows how. “Yes, I imagine it’s quite a shift, becoming someone’s property and all.” It’s accompanied by a wink, so Mina knows to laugh, and thankfully, she does. They fall into silence for a moment more, and Lucy, anxious to fill it, points behind Mina’s back. “I was just getting some…”

The look on Mina’s face makes her trail off. “I… well…” the newlywed stammers, eyes wide. “I wouldn’t.” She turns to face the punch bowl, and Lucy joins her over her shoulder. She tries to ignore the sweet strains of Mina’s perfume, so close to her nose. “See, I was going to get some of this punch, and my ring…”

Lucy catches on fast. “It fell off?”

“In there.” Mina nods, disbelieving. “My wedding ring is in there.” She moves the ladle helplessly, clearly out of ideas.

Now, it’s never been said that Lucy was terrible cautious, especially not when it comes to pretty girls with stunning eyes, and some singular instinct causes her to roll up a sleeve and grit her teeth. “I can get it out. Hide me. Use the dress.”

Mina’s eyes are wide. “Are you really going to – okay, I guess you are.” She chuckles a little, and obediently steps in front of Lucy, flattening out her skirt in order to hide the blonde woman’s frame.

A few of the groom’s friends approach Mina, and Lucy speeds up her search, eventually finding the simple silver band floating among the berries. She wipes it subtly on the tablecloth and slips it onto Mina’s waiting finger.

When she turns back around, the bride has been caught up in conversation with the groom’s boss, an Alexander Grayson, who, as far as Lucy can tell, manages some sort of business, not that he says much other than blatant flirtation and pretentious phrases he probably read in a magazine.

She plans to disappear, but Mina brushes Grayson off quickly and faces her, taking a punch-soaked hand in hers and grinning like she’s just won the lottery. Lucy finds her knees weak all of a sudden.

“Thank you so much, Lucy. Truly, you’ve saved this wedding.”

“It was nothing. Although I’m always up for being a knight in shining armor, or cotton, as the case may be.” Lucy curses her brain for always thinking of the worst possible thing to say, but Mina laughs, so it isn’t all bad. “If you’ll excuse me, I really should be going. I’ve already intruded on your wedding for long enough.”

“No, stay!” Mina says, squeezing her hand a bit tighter. “You’ve already helped so much. The least I can do is offer a night of food and dancing.” Her face is so open, like she’s pleading, and it kills any resolve Lucy might have had in less than a second.

“Alright,” she concedes, and Mina smiles brightly. Another worshipping attendee sidles up to coo at the blushing bride, and Lucy slips away, face bright red and heart beating almost out of her chest for no reason at all. 

\---

She’s married.

She’s _married._

It still doesn’t seem real. Her name is Mina Harker, she’s Jonathon Harker’s wife, and they are going to be happy forever, together, and this is all very wonderful.

The wedding went off without a hitch, her father cried when she said her vows, and her reception is more beautiful than she could have hoped for. For that, she supposes, she has the mysterious Lucy to thank, who seems to have disappeared into the crowd. Every so often, she catches a glimpse of her dark blue vest, but it disappears as quickly as it had appeared, and her attention is soon captured by another well-wisher, or, heaven forbid, Jonathon himself.

He simply looks so _handsome,_ in his dark suit and coattails, and when he twines an arm around her waist and smiles down at her, she feels her heart swell in her chest. He’s gallant and kind and intelligent and _perfect,_ and he’s her _husband,_ and everything is just _brilliant._

Dinner passes in a bit of a blur, and as the sun crests, the speeches begin. Her father, bless his heart, gives a meandering oratory on her best qualities, which, while highly entertaining, is also slightly humiliating, and she has the feeling she’ll need to cleanse her mind of it in the coming days. Alistair, Jonathon’s endlessly goofy best man, gives a short talk, mostly concerning himself (as is inevitable), and introduces Jonathon, who stands, clears his throat, and proceeds to stare at the audience, frightened beyond measure.

Jonathon had spoken of this, his debilitating stage fright, but Alistair had convinced him somehow to make the speech anyway (Mina expected it involved paying for after-work drinks for a certain amount of time, but she wasn’t going to ask). Now, faced with the very real prospect of three minutes of absolute silence, her scientist brain works quickly to come up with a solution.

Standing, wrapping a comforting arm around her new husband (!), she speaks into the microphone. “Hello everyone. I’m Jonathon. Thank you all for coming to my wedding. I’m here to tell you about all the reasons I just _adore_ Mina.”

The room gives a collective chuckle, and both her and Jonathon breathe a sigh of relief. He sits, content to let her lead the way, and she smiles. “Alright, well. It’s me now.” The collected family and friends laugh lightly again, and Mina rights herself, sifting through her mind for something good to say.

“I’ve been looking forward to this day all my life.” It’s a bit more honest than she would have liked, but she can feel Jonathon’s warm smile at her back, and it bolsters her. “And I’m glad I get to share it with so many people I love, and a few people I’ve never met before, though I’m sure you’re great too.” She sees Lucy, nursing a glass of punch in the back, and tries to catch her eye, but the blonde stares resolutely at the ground. Mina’s chest pinches, for some unknown reason, but she soldiers on.

“They say fairytales have happy endings, even though the passage can be rough. But Jonathon and I were dear, dear friends, and then lovers, and it’s been smooth all the way. Maybe…” Mina reaches back for her husband, feels his hand resolutely slide into hers, an anchor. “Maybe that’s a better kind of fairytale.”

“I know a toast can’t do all that,” she continues, fighting back the tears in her eyes, “but if you could all just wish us luck, Jonathon and I would appreciate that very much.”

A chorus of “good luck” rings around the tent. As Mina sits back down, she spots a flash of blonde hair slip out of an opening. There’s a pang of bizarre disappointment in her heart, but it’s mellowed out by the warm press of Jonathon’s lips to her own.

They’re both bone-tired when they fall asleep that night, and Mina doesn’t notice that the green eyes she dreams of aren’t Jonathon’s.

\---

“Mina.”

Mina blinks into startlingly bright sunlight. “Hmm?” Groggy, she pushes back the heavy duvet and sits slowly up.

“Mina,” and it’s Jonathon, bearing a tray of breakfast and coffee, and his smile is wide. “Morning, love.”

As it has every morning this week, Mina’s smile grows three sizes when she sees her husband’s face. His grin is crooked, and his hair is still a little mussed from sleep, and she really, really loves him.

“Since it’s our first full weekend as a married couple,” Jonathon says, circling the bed and settling down next to Mina, “I thought I might surprise you.”

“It’s lovely, darling,” Mina whisper-breathes into his lips, smile wide. “Thank you.”

“I feel bad,” Jonathon sighs, reaching for a mug of tea and mixing in just the right amount of milk for her; it makes her heart swell. “I begged Grayson to give me the month off for a honeymoon, but in the middle of this acquisition…”

Mina feels a pang in her heart; it had always been the dream to relax on a beach somewhere, in Jonathon’s arms, sipping fruity, extravagant cocktails and staying up far too late watching the waves, but she understood, and besides, it would have been unlikely she could have pawned off enough shifts to get even a week.

“I understand,” she placed a comforting hand over his. “Believe me, this is just as nice. Anywhere is, as long as I’m with you.” She kisses his cheek, and he grins.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, awe lacing his voice. “Like a morning rose.”

Even as she chides him for his awful attempt at poetry, the comment nags at something at the back of Mina’s mind, and for a breathless moment she’s back at her wedding, catching the startling green eyes of a mysterious blonde woman with flower stems sticking out of her belt.

Once the thought enters her mind, it doesn’t leave. Not while they’re out later, not while they’re eating lunch, and not while Mina’s falling asleep with Jonathon’s arm around her, coming up with excuses to sneak off the next morning.

\---

The first thing Lucy doesn’t expect on Sunday afternoon is a full shop.

Sundays are usually quiet days, but around noon a mourning woman came in to order a few arrangements for a dog’s funeral, followed by a grandfather asking for a bouquet for his granddaughter’s recital, and now, this man, asking for a “last chance flower.” Lucy speaks pretty exclusively in flower, and even she has no clue what he means.

She’s puzzling through his odd request when a gentle knock comes from the open glass door. The blonde is utterly unprepared to look up and see the bright blue eyes of Mina Harker, lip between her teeth, looking around the shop as if she’s never seen flowers before.

Lucy turns resolutely to last chance flower man and shows him the closest bouquet. “How about these?”

“What’s that?”

“Bird of paradise. Real name strelitzia, named after Charlotte of Strelitz. She married King George III, had fifteen kids. They never spent more than an hour apart-” By the time Lucy realizes obscure British monarch trivia is not likely to impress Mina or last chance flower man, he’s already shaking his head and moving out the door.

Mina snorts, and Lucy’s attention is drawn back to her. She has no idea why her hands are shaking.

“Hi,” Mina says, and Lucy sets down the strelitzia.

“Hello.” Her mind can’t seem to decide on what a casual stance is. She ends up just sticking her hands in her pockets and cocking a hip, which doesn’t really solve her problem. “Can I get you something?”

Mina’s eyes widen, and Lucy can practically see the gears spinning in her mind. It’s endearing, somehow. “Oh, no, I… I just wanted to thank you, again, for my flowers. They were lovely.”

“Of course.” Lucy neglects to say that she was hired to make them lovely, but she would have done it anyway, for Mina, and probably many other things too. She thinks that might be a bit much.

Last chance flower man pops back in holding a miniature cactus in a clay pot. “This is it,” he says, his resoluteness almost comical. “My last chance flower.” Lucy feels no shame in overcharging him just a little bit.

The second he’s gone, both Mina and Lucy erupt into giggles. Mina looks after him, strutting confidently down the street, cactus in hand.

“I would have taken the strelitzia,” she says, the laughter petering off. The room falls quiet while Lucy puts the unselected flowers back in water, and then, suddenly, Mina says, “dinner!”

Lucy’s brow furrows. “Sorry?”

“Would you, that is. Would you like to come to dinner? With me? And Jonathon?” Mina shakes her head, seemingly embarrassed. “Jonathon, my husband. And I. At our flat.” Mina ducks her head and mutters something that sounds like “oh, god…” to the ground. It’s endearing.

Mina is inviting her to dinner. Mina Harker, beautiful, recently married, Mina Harker, is inviting her to dinner. This is a colossally bad idea.

Lucy swallows down every reservation and good instinct that tries to force its way out of her throat, and makes the stupid, stupid choice.

“When should I be there?”

Mina seems to breathe a sigh of relief. She scribbles down an address and a time on a crumpled receipt on the counter. Gives Lucy a little wave, turns, and essentially bolts out the door, yelling “see you then!” as she goes.

Lucy looks after her for a long while, then down at the address. She has precisely twenty-four hours to find something suitable to wear to a dinner at Mina Harker’s house.

Oh, bloody _hell._

\---

She ends up walking to Mina’s apartment, giving her more time to let regret and fear sink into every pore of her skin. _This is a stupid idea_ repeats like a mantra in her head, but before she knows it she’s pressing the buzzer, and then she’s in the elevator, and then she’s at their door, and there’s no turning back.

Jonathon opens the door first, and he takes her coat and welcomes her in and he’s incredibly gallant. Lucy brought flowers, since it’s just about the only way she knows to show affection, and he offers to put them in a vase.

Mina appears, suddenly, out of what must the bathroom, fiddling with her hair. She stops almost short when she sees Lucy, and the regret feels stronger than ever, but then Mina is smiling, and she hugs her, and Lucy feels all those reservations start to melt away.

They sit on the couch, and for a moment there’s silence. Desperately, awkwardly, Lucy reaches for something to say. “So. How’s being married?”

It’s awful, terrible, but it makes Mina laugh. “Fine, I suppose. Between Jonathon’s work and my late-night shifts, we haven’t had much time to spend together. This weekend was a miracle for the both of us.”

Lucy immediately feels guilty for ruining their time together, but Mina assuages her, reading it clear on her face. “Although this is quite nice, a dinner with friends. We needed to get out of our own heads a bit.”

Mina calling Lucy _friend_ makes something warm bloom in her belly. Trying desperately to quench it, she clears her throat. “Shifts? Where do you work?”

Mina smiles indulgently. “I’m secretary at a pediatric clinic. I love working with children, and I love medicine and helping people. I hope to become a physician one day, but this is best for now.” Lucy hears longing and pride and something else in her voice, maybe resignation? But it’s gone before she can really tell.

“What about you?” Mina asks, and Lucy frowns.

“I work at a flower shop,” she says, misunderstanding, and Mina laughs.

“No, sorry, I meant, what about marriage? Any special someone?”

“Oh.” Lucy hopes the rampant blush she can feel filling her cheeks isn’t as obvious as it usually is. “Not at the moment, no. Maybe one day, now the laws have changed.”

It’s a stupid thing to say. It’s a very, very stupid thing to say, especially now that Lucy can see Mina puzzling through the remark, trying to piece out its meaning. She berates herself internally, but there’s no going back now.

“I’m gay,” she says, fists clenched, body tight. Everything is silent for a moment. She hopes this doesn’t result in her being thrown out of the flat, but Mina’s furrowed brow relaxes, and she chuckles lightly.

“Oh,” she says, “I see.” She’s smiling, and Lucy relaxes, only a little. The buzzer rings, and Jonathon calls that he’ll get it. Mina’s face suddenly falls.

“That should be Alistair,” she says, and Lucy frowns, recognizing the name from the wedding. 

“Alistair’s coming?”

Mina stops in her walk to the door, pivoting to face Lucy. “Yes. Yes, he is.”

Lucy stands as well, smoothing down the front of her pants. _This should be fun._

\---

It is not fun.

Alistair is loud, crass, and has no filter to speak of. He hits on her unashamedly all through dinner, in between veiled insults to Jonathon’s cooking (it’s not that he’s wrong, it’s just that he’s rude). Mina does her best to stop him, and, after a whispered conversation with Jonathon, her husband joins in, but Alistair either can’t get a clue or genuinely thinks she’ll want to shag him if he asks enough times.

It’s a long night.

“So, give it up,” Alistair finally says. “How much better is sex after marriage?”

Lucy stifles a laugh, simply glad the spotlight is finally off of her. Mina blushes a spectacular red, and Jonathon chuckles lightly.

“Get married and find out yourself, Al,” he says, standing to clear the plates.

“Not a one-person person, Johnny, but thanks for the suggestion.” Alistair stretches, clearly trying to demonstrate his muscles, but Lucy deliberately looks away. “I can’t do that kind of commitment.”

“You really don’t believe you’ll ever meet that perfect person?” Mina asks, and Alistair shakes his head.

“I think I’ve met a lot of perfect people. None of them have been perfect enough to shag for the rest of my life, that’s all.”

“Please, you couldn’t shag the same person for the rest of the week,” Jonathon chimes in from the kitchen, but Mina is determined.

“I don’t know. It’ll all change when you meet Miss Right.”

“And how am I supposed to know when that happens?” Alistair rolls his eyes.

Mina sits forward and chews on her lip. Lucy follows the motion with her eyes. “You don’t know, not straight away. It just feels… I don’t know, comfortable after a while. And you know you’ve made the right decision.”

Maybe it’s the wine she’s been drinking. Maybe it’s her horrible, argumentative instincts. Maybe it’s even the way the light above the table is shining on Mina’s face, but something makes her say. “I don’t agree.”

Three heads turn to her, and she fights through. _No going back now._ “I think you know immediately.” Her cheeks burn, her heart flutters, but she keeps going, meeting Mina’s eyes steadily across the table. “From the second your eyes…” Mina is staring at her, and she can’t finish the sentence. “And then everything that happens from then on just proves that you had been right in that first moment. When you suddenly realized you had been incomplete and now you are whole.”

Everything is quiet for a pause. Mina blinks, and Lucy thinks she sees something there, but it’s fleeting and gone so soon.

She can vaguely hear Alistair and Jonathon agreeing with her, but her eyes are focused on Mina, who can’t seem to find something to say.

“So. Who’s for pudding?” Jonathon asks, and Lucy agrees, anything to get Mina to stop staring at her like the universe rests behind her eyes.

“No,” Mina says, and it draws Lucy’s attention back to her.

“No?”

“No. If you think that, you think that everyone that doesn’t have all that… business is setting for less.” There’s an undercurrent of manic worry to her tone, like she’s trying to make up for something, and Lucy doesn’t know what.

“That’s not really what I’m saying.”

“That is kind of what you’re saying.”

“I think she said it a bit nicer,” Alistair interjects.

“You can’t really believe in all that predestined soulmate stuff, can you?” Mina asks her, and it makes Lucy pause.

Truly, she never had. She believed in pleasure, and love if you looked hard enough, and mutual respect, but never once had she considered the possibility of looking into someone’s eyes and seeing all of them, all at once, before this moment. Before meeting Mina’s eyes across a crowded chapel, a moment she couldn’t stop replaying in her mind.

“I believe that there are things we will never understand, and maybe love is one of them.” It’s the most vulnerable thing she’s ever shared to a group of fundamentally strangers, maybe even the most vulnerable thing she’s said ever. But Mina falls quiet, and behind her, Jonathon hefts a desert into the air.

“Trifle?”

\---

Lucy disappears before they can even start eating, and Mina finds her out on the roof, under an umbrella, legs crossed elegantly on the edge. She’s seconds away from either falling off or getting soaked due to the pouring rain, and Mina calls her back in hurriedly, afraid, but mostly guilty.

Once Lucy is safe and dry inside, Mina gets to it. “I’m sorry about dinner.”

Lucy brushes it off. “Oh, I’ve had worse.”

“No, I mean…” Mina’s at a loss. _I’m sorry for calling your idea of love stupid? I’m sorry for inviting Alistair to set him up with you? I’m sorry that I don’t know how to feel, because I don’t know if Jonathon and I have ever had that spark?_

Turns out she doesn’t have to say anything at all, because Lucy just smiles. “It’s alright. I know everyone thinks about it differently. At least you have Jonathon.” There’s something tight in her voice when she says it, but Mina’s probably just projecting.

She’s about to say something else when Jonathon calls up from downstairs. “Could you two come down here please? Alistair wants to play strip poker, or maybe strip Alistair, and I would very much like him to go home.”

Lucy smiles at her. “I’ll head out. Thank you again, for everything.”

Mina feels like she should be the one thanking Lucy, but can’t exactly pinpoint why. A thousand thoughts run through her head, but she settles on “stay dry” and watches Lucy’s back and she descends the stairs.

Her heart is like a hummingbird in her chest, and she hasn’t the slightest idea why.

\---

Lucy hopes to make it to the bus stop fairly quickly (no walking home in this weather) but Alistair catches her outside of the door and offers to drive her home. Her protests don’t seem to work, and at least it’ll be faster.

“So,” he says once she’s told him her address. “Jonathon told me you’re not into guys, is that right?”

Lucy closes her eyes and rubs her temple, where a headache is slowly starting to form. “That’s right.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She sighs. If she had a pound for every time someone asked her that question, she… well, she wouldn’t be a florist, that’s for sure.

“Quite sure. Next left.”

“Because we can just go back to mine, maybe, and I can try to change your mind.”

“That’s now how it works, Alistair,” she says, mentally calculating how many times you can punch someone in the face without breaking their nose.

“I’ve met more than one vagetarian who eats meat under the right circumstances, if you know what I mean.” Lucy doesn’t even need to open her eyes to see his suggestive eyebrow waggle.

“Did you seriously just call lesbians ‘vagetarians?’”

“Don’t worry about that.” Despite his assurances, Lucy is, decidedly, worried about that.

“Next right.”

“Or, I could just go straight, and-”

“Take the next right.”

There’s a moment of silence, then Alistair says, “all right, fine. You’re welcome not to shag me, but at least don’t sit there all quiet and broody. Come on, spill to Uncle Ally. It’s a girl thing, isn’t it? Give me every detail. Leave no page unturned.”

Against all her better instincts, Lucy finds herself saying, “Have you ever met someone and just…” She trails off. “But there’s someone else already?”

Alistair nods solemnly. “’Course. Hot ones are always taken.”

“So what do you do?”

He thinks for a moment, then shrugs. “I shag them.”

“Really?”

“Really. Partner is their problem, not mine.”

“That’s not right,” Lucy breathes, leaning her head against the cool of the window. Her headache hasn’t gone away. “I don’t think you should… mess with other couples that way. You don’t cause that pain, ever. You just… walk away. And you look for the right person somewhere else.”

“Even if it’s your special magic soulmate?” Alistair is mocking her, she can tell, but she can’t bring herself to care about much of anything in the moment.

“Even if.”

\---

The universe seems to be on a campaign to make Mina’s life as terrible as possible.

First, when she gets to the office, she finds out that her boss has taken it upon himself to give her shifts to someone else, freeing up her day and leaving her listless. Then, Jonathon has to drive out of town for a meeting that he can’t reschedule, and he says he won’t be back before morning. And finally, just when she’s had enough, she runs into Lucy at the coffee shop.

Ever since dinner a week ago, Mina’s been thinking about Lucy. Maybe more than she should. But she can’t help it. Lucy’s intriguing. She’s smart, she’s driven, she’s funny, and a warm, soft feeling takes up residence in Mina’s gut whenever she thinks about her. It’s altogether kind of confusing, and now, seeing Lucy all bundled up in a sweater and jeans and boots and scarf, cradling a tea close to her chest like it’s a lifeline, it makes her… feel something, something she doesn’t quite understand and can’t name.

Lucy sees her across the shop and gives a little wave. Her hair is unbound and bouncy around her shoulders, and her eyes are still a brilliant green, and Mina is walking over, suddenly.

“Hello,” she says, voice much steadier than she feels. “How’ve you been?”

“Good,” Lucy says, sipping at her tea. “Idle. Not much business down at the shop. You?”

“Fine,” Mina says. “Lonely.” She doesn’t know why she says it, but Lucy raises a (perfect) eyebrow, and suddenly she’s spilling everything. “I think my boss hates me, Jonathon is out of town, and-” _And every time I think about you, I can’t stop myself from smiling._ She can’t possibly say that.

“And?”

“And everything is awful.” She finishes, rather undignifiedly, by taking a large bite out of her muffin.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Lucy says amusedly. She waits while Mina swallows, then continues, “I was just about to stop by the hardware store to pick up a new pair of shears, if you wanted to come. It’s not very exciting, but I’ve been told I’m good company.”

Mina agrees, mostly for something to do. They walk together, shoulders occasionally bumping; every time they do, Mina’s stomach flips.

They talk of benign things: the weather, the latest football results, what books they’ve been reading lately. Lucy listens with her whole face, nodding and humming and reacting but never so much that Mina feels like she’s boring her. And when Lucy speaks, she cranes to hear the soft words, to take in everything she says like its holy, to learn more about this mysterious woman.

Surprisingly, Lucy is fairly talkative when they’re alone. Mina learns that she hates sunny weather, which is why she’s never left London, and that she loves dogs but is allergic to cats. She learns that she’s never seen the ocean, but her father used to take her hiking in the mountains before he left her and her mother when she was twelve. She learns Lucy was an anthropology major, which is such an interesting tidbit she makes her talk about her studies for the rest of the walk.

She talks about herself a bit, too: her likes and dislikes, her family (especially her father, who Lucy gushes about from the wedding), and her job. She tells Lucy about how she feels she might be fired soon, for doing absolutely nothing, and Lucy offers her a place at the shop if it happens, even though she knows nothing about flowers. That’s just the kind of person Lucy is, Mina thinks.

They don’t mention Jonathon the whole walk, and Mina finds herself not minding.

The hardware store is closed, apparently, so Mina, in a moment of floundering courage, invites Lucy over for an early dinner. Lucy’s eyes light up the slightest bit, and it doesn’t even matter that Mina’s an awful cook when Lucy is looking like that.

Their hands brush as they walk, and her stomach turns again. She asks Lucy if they can stop by the pharmacy so she can pick up some anti-nausea meds before they get home.

\---

Mina burns dinner. They order a curry and watch crappy TV, and when Lucy finally leaves around midnight, the flat feels cold and empty without her voice and her smile.

Mina dreams of green eyes and soft blonde hair.

\---

Mina sees Lucy a few times after that, once again in the coffee shop after work and every so often at her flat, eating dinner or watching a movie. Lucy is a refreshing presence in her life, something to look forward to when she’s lonely, trapped behind a desk at work, and Lucy confides that she feels the same. Lucy becomes close enough that Mina can finally call her a friend.

The feelings she has around her are still confusing. Lucy is funny and brilliant and kind, and every so often she smiles _just so_ and Mina has to remind herself to breathe. A warm, bubbly feeling fills her chest when Lucy laughs, so much so that she starts avoiding the blonde, if only to have more time and space to decipher the strange way her body reacts to her.

She avoids her for a while, in fact, long enough that October passes and November comes, along with relentless wind and cold.

Her and Jonathon spend as much time as they can together, but when she climbs into bed beside him now, there’s a heavy feeling, like lead, that sits in the pit of her stomach and keeps her awake. She would call it guilt, but she hasn’t done anything wrong; at least, not that she knows of. Rather, it’s foreboding, like her body knows that something’s coming, but her mind hasn’t caught up.

Jonathon doesn’t seem to sense that something is wrong; he’s his cheerful, lovely self, even when Mina feels parts of herself slipping away with every kiss and every night they spend cuddling. They haven’t slept together since the wedding, partly due to their schedules and partly due to Mina’s hesitance. She doesn’t know what it is, but every time she thinks about sex with Jonathon now, something in her cramps up and she has to take a deep breath.

Even though things have been tense in that department, Jonathon still suggests they go out for Bonfire Night, and Mina doesn’t have the heart to turn him down. There’s a celebration in a park nearby their flat, and they bundle up in their warmest clothes and make their way there hand in hand, Mina feeling almost comfortable.

They’re watching the fireworks, relaxed comfortably into one another, when Mina sees her from across the way: Lucy stands next to a woman to which she bears a cursory resemblance, sipping beer from a plastic cup, looking like she wants to be anywhere but there.

A pang goes through Mina, and she almost suggests they go over there, but Jonathon’s hand in hers feels like an anchor, holding her in place. She takes one look at his face, swallows resolutely, and turns away. 

“Let’s go home,” she suggests, and Jonathon seems surprised, a little disappointed, but he agrees.

The walk home isn’t as nice as the walk over. They don’t talk, and Jonathon seems determined to keep his distance. The weight in Mina’s stomach increases, and its turned into full blown nausea by the time Jonathon unlocks the front door and takes off his scarf.

“Fancy a beer?” He asks, and Mina nods, twisting the sleeves of her coat in her hands. Lucy is far from her sight, but she’s somehow all she can think about, and Mina doesn’t know why. She just keeps seeing those troubled green eyes, reflecting the firelight like magic.

Jonathon’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts. “Mina,” he asks, steady and calm, a port in a storm, “are you pregnant?”

Mina’s eyes widen. “No! No, of course not. Why the hell would you think that?”

Jonathon shrugs, uncapping the beers. “You’ve been cagey as of late, and you haven’t wanted to have sex, I just wasn’t sure.”

Mina accepts the bottle he offers with both hands, gripping tight enough her knuckles whiten. “No, not pregnant. Just stressed about work.”

“Hmm,” Jonathon hums. “You know, we can-” But he doesn’t get to finish his thought, because his phone rings from the counter. “Hold that, it’s work.”

Jonathon goes into the other room to take the call, and Lucy’s eyes appear in Mina’s mind again. She can’t stop thinking about her, alone, miserable in the cold, and she wishes she could be there, making her laugh, making her smile, making her happy. 

The thought is startlingly genuine, and it surprises Mina with its intensity. Without even thinking about it, she’s picking up the landline and dialing Lucy’s number (which she definitely doesn’t have down by heart, no way).

“Hello?” Lucy’s voice on the other end of the phone is clear and bored-sounding. There’s a din; she must still be at the park. Mina suddenly finds herself unable to speak. She imagines Lucy, standing by the fire, the orange light highlighting her blonde hair, phone clutched to her ear, lovely lips pursed while she waits for Mina to answer.

“Hello?” She asks it again, a little more annoyed now. Mina still can’t speak. She feels very foolish, suddenly, _why on earth did I call her?_

Jonathon appears from the bedroom, muttering. “Of course they need me this weekend. I told them we had football tickets, and…” Mina hangs up as fast as she can, dropping the phone on the couch.

“I’m so sorry, love,” Jonathon says, running his hands down Mina’s arms comfortingly, like he always does. Usually, it makes her feels safe, loved, but she finds herself wanting to push his hands away and run. “That was Grayson. He’s gonna need me out of town this weekend. I can’t make it to the game.”

Mina frowns. “Well, I can just stay home…”

“No, you should still go. My evening will be rubbish, you should at least enjoy yourself.” Jonathon is about to continue to convince her when the phone rings. Mina holds her breath while he picks it up.

“Lucy!” Jonathon says, gesturing to the phone. Mina nods, heart still.

“Hello, Jonathon.” Lucy’s voice is tense, but the other man doesn’t notice. “Sorry to ring so late, it’s only that my phone went off, and-”

Jonathon gasps. “Sorry, Lucy, but I’ve just had a fantastic idea,” he says, and Lucy falls quiet. “Would you mind escorting my wife somewhere tomorrow night? I’ve got a work thing I can’t get out of, and we’ve got football tickets, and I wouldn’t want her to be alone. Go on, then, say yes.”

Lucy is silent, and Mina holds her breath. Through the phone, she hears the blonde agree, and Jonathon grins. “Brilliant. Mina can ring you with the details. Right then, thanks. I’ll be seeing you.”

Someone must hang up, because Jonathon drops the phone and smiles at Mina. “See, now you won’t have to be alone.”

Mina forces a smile onto her face and buries her fears deep down.

\---

Lucy stares at herself in the mirror for a full hour before going to pick Mina up, which is ridiculous, considering she’s wearing jeans and a worn sweater under a coat. This isn’t a club, this is a bloody football game, and she’s being absurd.

Truth be told, Lucy is not the kind of girl to spend her night cheering on violent, sweaty men for a pretty girl, but something about Mina is already a little revolutionary, and the image of the poor girl sitting all alone in a football stadium while her husband gets drunk with work friends makes something pang inside her heart.

To be fair, she knows she’s being stupid. Feelings are difficult, feelings for straight girls even more so, and feelings for _married_ straight girls are almost impossible. She knows it will never happen, knows Mina is happy with Jonathon and that’s that, knows that every afternoon they spend getting closer is another step in the wrong direction for her lonely, fragile heart.

But when Mina smiles and laughs and scrunches up her nose all adorable like, Lucy can’t help but throw caution to the wind.

The game is as boring as she would have guessed, though Mina’s genuine excitement is enough to bolster her. The brunette was frosty on the walk to the stadium, but warmed up once they were inside, and now she’s yelling all shrill like at the opposing team, calling out insults even Lucy would have blushed at.

“You know, if you want them to hear your abuse better, you’ve got to project more,” she jokes, but Mina gives her an inquisitive look and Lucy jumps into the metaphorical deep end of teaching a girl to scream.

_Bloody hell. What have I gotten myself into?_

“Can you teach me?” Mina asks, and Lucy nods.

“All right, first off, tighten your stomach muscles.”

Mina rolls her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve got any.”

“Yes, you do. Here.” Without thinking, Lucy places her hand on Mina’s ribs, just under her chest, and they stand there for a breathless moment as she stews in her tremendous, tremendous mistake. She expects Mina to push her away and run in the other direction.

But Mina only breathes and says “oh.”

“Now, broaden your diaphragm.”

Mina does, Lucy can feel it through their layers. The fact that she’s here, a hand on Mina’s stomach, feeling her breathe, is almost enough to make her faint, but she soldiers through, hoping to god this moment never ends, and hating herself for it.

“Do you feel my hand?” she asks, breathless, and she hopes Mina doesn’t notice.

“Maybe… Maybe if you put them both there.”

It feels like an invitation for something, but Lucy doesn’t know what. Obliging, she steps so that she’s behind Mina’s back and wraps her arms around her, settling both hands on her stomach. 

Mina is impossibly warm, and she smells the way she did on her wedding day, like camellias and lilies and rain. Lucy does her best to school her features into an impassive look, but she’s sure all of London can hear her heart beating by now.

“Now,” she says, her voice steadier than she would have thought, “imagine the roof of your mouth is a cathedral.”

Mina furrows her brow. “What?”

“It’s a space thing. Your mouth is that big that you have to fill it with sound. Deep from inside, filling the space, then throwing it out.”

“How?” Mina asks, and Lucy smirks.

“Like this.” She steps away from Mina, cups her hands around her mouth, and yells.

“YOU’RE A WANKER, NUMBER NINE!”

The spectators around them fall silent. Some stare, some chuckle, and Number Nine stares dejectedly at them from the field. Mina is trying hard to hold in her laughs.

“See?” Lucy asks. Wind blows hair into her face, and when she’s able to push it away, Mina is looking at her with something in her eyes that she can’t read. “What?” she whispers, soft, into the wind.

“Nothing,” Mina whispers just as softly back. They go back to the game, but every so often, Lucy feels Mina’s eyes on her.

\---

As they’re leaving the stadium, Mina suggests they go somewhere. Lucy can see the look in her eyes; desperation and fear. She has no idea why going to home to her loving husband is such an awful thought, but she obliges.

“I feel like dancing,” she suggests jokingly, and Mina grins like a proud cat, canary under its paws.

“Boom. Hold that thought,” she says, and Lucy does, smiling at the way Mina’s face lights up. Somewhere between meeting eyes in a chapel and walking to a mysterious place where they can dance, she’s become utterly and irrevocably attached to this woman, and she can’t quite bring herself to care.

In the end, Mina brings her to an arcade, and they play an hour’s worth of Dance Dance Revolution. They get into it, stripping down, sweating, adding improvised moves, and it’s the stupidest, happiest, most fun night Lucy has had in a while.

When they put their coats back on to leave, she catches an almost wistful look in Mina’s eyes. Once they’re out on the street, she takes Mina’s hand in hers, and they walk like that the rest of the way home.

\---

“You really don’t think you should go back to school?” Lucy asks, kicking at loose stones on the sidewalk. They’ve been talking the whole way back to Mina’s flat, and the subject has come to jobs.

“I would love to go to med school, but I don’t know if now’s the right time, with money and work and… Jonathon.” Mina bites her lip when she says it, and Lucy pretends she doesn’t notice. “It was always a dream of mine, to be like my father, but we just didn’t have enough to do it. My job is fine for now.”

Lucy doubts it; she’s heard enough to know Mina hates that job, but she doesn’t press. “I understand, I suppose. I’m wasting a four-year degree in a flower shop, I’m not really one to talk.”

“Yes, but you love it, don’t you?”

“I do, but my mother doesn’t approve.” Lucy sighs. “Since my father died, she’s been on me to get a real job and make real money. I just… I like where I am.”

Mina nods. There’s a moment of relaxed silence, then she says, “do florists really know what every flower means?”

Lucy chuckles, they cross the street. “Not every one. It’s an antiquated language, but I like to use it. I find it interesting.”

“Give me an example.”

“Okay…” Lucy trails off, trying to think of something. “The anemone means fading hope, unrequited love. But it also symbolizes anticipation.”

“That’s so sad,” Mina says. “Tell me about… tell me about the lily. It’s my favorite.”

Lucy’s heart skips a beat when Mina says it. _She couldn’t know._ No, Mina wasn’t well versed in the meaning of flowers, but the lily… it felt almost like fate.

“You don’t want to know about the lily,” she said, avoiding the subject. “Ask me about the azalea.”

Mina looks like she wants to pry, but she acquiesces. “Alright, what about the azalea?”

“The azalea means may you achieve financial security.”

Mina makes a face. “God, that’s awful. I can’t believe people really like azaleas.” Their laughs peter off, and then Mina smiles devilishly. “Now tell me about the lily.”

Lucy sighs, stopping. She looks Mina in the eye, facing her pale blue irises and summoning all her stupid, giddy courage.

“The lily means I dare you to love me.”

She turns and crosses the street hurriedly, hoping to throw Mina off, but the brunette only rushes to catch up to her. “That’s beautiful,” she says, and that’s that.

“Thanks for tonight,” Mina says after a moment. “I had a lovely time.”

“Thank you,” Lucy says, and, because her brain doesn’t seem to be functioning tonight, “It was my birthday.”

“Really?” Mina exclaims. “You should have said something. I would have… I don’t know, gotten you a cake or something.”

“No, it’s okay.” Lucy laughs. “It was a lovely one anyway.” They stop in front of Mina’s apartment building, neither quite willing to let the evening go.

“This is me,” Mina says uselessly, and Lucy nods, biting her lip. She waits for Mina to go inside, but the brunette doesn’t move.

It all happens so suddenly. Mina leans forward, her folded arms crashing into Lucy’s chest, and almost kisses her.

The anticipation of it is unbridled; in only a few brief seconds, Lucy is willing to completely hand herself over. For a moment, she thinks Mina might actually do it, and she finds herself not caring about consequences, thinking, _yes, god, finally-_

And then a car speeds past, and the bubble bursts.

Mina pulls away suddenly, and they can only stare at each other, tension crackling between them like pure energy. Lucy wants to lean forwards. She wants to pull Mina back in. It’s foolish, she knows, stupid to want more even with everything, even with Jonathon, but she can’t help it, because in those fleeting moments while she thought Mina might kiss her…

In those fleeting moments, she felt like she might be in love.

“Good night,” Mina says, and she runs away, up the stairs and into her building, and Lucy is left there, hands in her pockets, heart aching for something so impossible it might as well not even exist.

“Good night,” she says to an empty street.

\---

She’s sitting in front of Jonathon, she’s making direct _eye contact_ with him, for goodness sake, and she can’t stop thinking about that almost-kiss.

It had barely been anything; Mina could have chalked it up to tripping on an uneven sidewalk, could have said she wanted to smell Lucy’s perfume, _anything,_ but she didn’t give an excuse, and now she has to live with Lucy knowing Mina wants to kiss her.

It had been a week. A week since Lucy’s birthday, since the night of football and silly arcade games and _happiness,_ a happiness so pure and concentrated it was almost unbelievable.

A week, and she still couldn’t focus on anything but the heat that had coursed through her body at the thought of Lucy’s lips on hers.

So now, her and Jonathon were out to dinner, and she was trying to fix her stupid, traitorous heart.

“Good pasta,” he says, mouth stuffed with it, and she smiles wanly at him, unable to eat more than a few bites of her, admittedly delicious, food.

Jonathon wipes off his mouth and sets down his napkin. “Alright. This has gone on long enough. Is there something up at work? You’re weird tonight.”

Mina tries to hide her dull panic. “Nothing, nothing at all. Just tired. Why do you ask?”

Jonathon raises an eyebrow, and it reminds her so much of Lucy that she has to blink to clear the image of blonde hair and alabaster skin from her mind. “Because you’re spaced out, and I want to know if… I don’t know. You’re fine, you said so. Right?”

It’s an out. He’s offering her an opportunity, to spill everything, to explain, to beg him for forgiveness or help or _something,_ she doesn’t really know. It’s an out, and she’s too scared to take it.

Scared of losing Jonathon, or, perhaps, scared of losing Lucy.

“Nothing’s wrong. I promise. Just knackered. I need more sleep.”

“Don’t we all,” Jonathon quips, and they go back to their food.

\---

Lucy fidgets with her fingers and lets out a long-suffering sigh, watching her mother sip wine elegantly from across the table.

“Is something wrong, Lucy, dear?” Minerva asks. Her words are caring, but her tone implies impatience with Lucy’s antics.

“No, nothing’s wrong.” Lucy picks at a spot on the tablecloth. “I’ve just got a lot of work to do, is all.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to keep you from important work.” Minerva is being sarcastic. It stings, a bit. The older woman makes no move to release Lucy from her duties, despite her words, and the two sit in silence for a minute more.

“Is there anything new I should know about?” Minerva asks. The lights are dim, and the conversation around them in the restaurant is low. The atmosphere is almost suffocating, and Lucy feels the pressure of it like a weight on her chest.

_Yes, Mother, there is something new. I’m pretty sure I’m in love with someone who can never love me back. And it’s awful, because we’re actually very good together. And she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met, and everything kind of sucks._

“No,” she says.

Minerva cranes her neck to look back to the kitchen, probably wondering where their food is. Lucy is inclined to agree; she’d like to get away as soon as possible, from Minerva’s prying stare, from the smothering room, from everything.

“And how’s the shop?”

“Lovely. Doing well.” Lucy grits her teeth, waiting for the ever-present judgment on her chosen career, but it doesn’t come.

The waiter brings a tray over, but it goes to the next table. Minerva sips her wine with a grimace. “I was speaking to Mrs. Waterberg the other day, who said her son saw you at a Liverpool game with a girl.”

Lucy does the best to tame the fervent blush in her cheeks. She reaches nonchalantly for her drink, doing her best impression of someone with nothing to hide. “Oh?”

“He said the two of you looked very cozy.”

Lucy’s blush spreads to her neck. She curses her pale skin and fragile constitution. “She’s just a friend, mother. She’s married.”

Minerva smiles and nods. It looks predatory. “I certainly hope so.”

\---

A week later, Lucy gets a call from a distorted voice asking for a delivery made to a restaurant a few blocks away. She carries the bouquet, her senseless heart almost hoping it’s Mina.

In fact, it’s Alistair, sitting there with a smug look on his face. She sets the bouquet down and sighs at him.

“You really don’t want to shag me?” He asks.

“Alistair, you and me…” Lucy shrugs. “It’s never going to happen.”

“Okay.” He looks surprisingly pleased with that answer. “Friends then? I ordered two lunches.”

Lucy can’t help it; she laughs. “We can be friends.”

She does get a free lunch out of it, after all.

\---

Lucy is doing inventory on a completely ordinary Tuesday when Mina comes charging up the street.

She’s got a look on her face Lucy can’t decipher, and the appearance of the brunette makes something funny twist in her stomach. She’s barely able to say “hello, good to see you” before Mina is shaking her head, muttering like a crazed woman.

“No, you can’t, no. You can’t be happy- you’re not happy to see me. I don’t want you to be happy to see me.”

“…Okay.” Lucy quirks her eyebrows, unsure where this is going but afraid it’s nowhere good.

“Okay.” Mina runs her hands through her hair frustratedly, and the action makes Lucy’s heart ache. She doesn’t know how she got here, to the senseless, stupid, longing she feels whenever she meets Mina’s eyes, but a whisper at the back of her mind says there’s no going back. They’re on the precipice of something, she knows it. She shuts the door.

“So, I’m here because I don’t know what’s going on,” Mina continues. “You make me feel something, something I absolutely cannot feel.”

There it is. It’s out in the open now, whatever either of them chooses to do with it. It had existed as this unspoken crevasse between them, and now, that crackling tension, that achingly sweet feeling in her chest she gets whenever she smells Mina’s perfume, just looks in her direction, all of that is thrust into the light of day, and Lucy finds her whole world has titled on its axis.

In, oh, about two months, Mina has become one of the most important things in her life, and she is very much aware that the way the next few minutes go could very well decide her entire future with this beautiful, brilliant woman.

“I’m married,” Mina breathes. She can’t look at Lucy. “I’m married, I have a husband, this man that I…” she chokes up, and Lucy’s heart skips a stupid, traitorous beat. “This lovely guy. He’s done nothing wrong.”

Lucy opens her mouth to respond, but there’s a sharp knock on the glass behind her head, and an old man is suddenly there. Mina takes one look at him and turns on a heel, heading to the back room.

Lucy steps away from the door to follow, but the man takes it as an invitation. “I was wondering if you could help me,” he says as he comes in. “I was hoping to start an herb garden.”

The sudden change in tone of the afternoon would strike Lucy as funny if her heart weren’t beating a thousand times a minute and her brain weren’t basically on autopilot. She hands his a few pots and shoves him out the door, muttering “on the house” as he goes. She’s certain she hasn’t given him what he’s looking for, but she can hardly care.

When Lucy finally gets to the back room, Mina is standing there, wringing her hands. “So, do you see? I can’t do this. I can’t actually… actually do this. Whatever this is or was, it’s got to stop, and it’s got to stop now. Do you understand?”

There is a suspended moment where neither one of them breathes. Mina’s next words are so quiet, Lucy barely hears them.

“It’s over.”

She pushes past the blonde and out the door, and Lucy stands there, unable to move, unable to think, hardly able to breathe. She thinks, finally, that Mina has pushed her off the precipice, and she’s falling. The ground is in her sights, and soon enough, she will be dead at Mina’s cruel, utterly truthful hands.

Mina pushes back in through the swinging door, grabs Lucy by the face, and kisses her, hard.

Okay, _now_ they’ve fallen off the precipice.

Mina’s lips are ridiculously soft, and she kisses with a single-minded focus, like she’s solving an equation or stitching up a patient. Her kisses are hard, feverish, exactly the kind of kiss you might expect from someone who’s kept her desires buried for months. Mina kisses like the world might end and she only wants to be in Lucy’s arms when it does.

It’d be a pretty wonderful way to go.

Mina maneuvers them back to piles of rose bushes, and Lucy’s about to pull away to complain about crushing her inventory, but then Mina’s pushing her down and licking along her bottom lip, and Lucy has no thoughts left in her brain, much less the resolve to voice them.

It’s as if she’s been transported to another plane, kissing Mina. It’s like she’s been stumbling around in the dark, and someone turned on the light. Every lonely night and stupid hookup makes so much sense now that Mina’s weight is pressing her down, now that Mina’s mouth is on hers, now that Mina invades every one of her senses and takes up residence there, settling down and marking her.

It’s perfect. It’s mind-numbingly, stupidly, brilliantly perfect, and Lucy never wants it to end.

Mina’s hands travel up her sides, over her tank top at first, but then one bravely ventures under and Lucy sucks in a sharp breath at the feel of Mina’s cold hand against her skin. Her own hands can’t do much more than run from Mina’s back to her neck, tangling in her hair, and Mina makes the sweetest, breathiest noise when she tugs just a little bit that makes Lucy want to worship her even as she’s swallowing it with her mouth.

Everything is a blur, a beautiful, perfect blur, until Lucy lands on a particularly unruly plant and feels the sting of a few dozen rose thorns poking into her back through her sweater.

“Ow!” She sits straight up, and Mina’s close in an instant, concern flashing through her eyes.

“Are you alright?”

“Thorns in my back,” Lucy says, rubbing the offending spot. Mina stifles a laugh. 

“Maybe kissing on the roses was a bad idea.”

“You think?” Mina can’t hold back her laughter, and they fall in on one another, a mess of giggling, youthful happiness. Lucy leans into Mina’s warmth, pressing a kiss to her cheek, then her temple. She’s venturing back down to her lips when she hears the bell on the door go off.

“Another customer,” she whispers, shushing Mina’s unending laughter.

“Hello?” A too-familiar voice calls. Then, “Lucy? Are you in the back?”

Lucy’s up in an instant, smoothing her hair and her shirt, brushing fallen rose petals off of her clothes. Mina follows, a distinct look of fear in her eyes. “Wait a second, Jonathon,” Lucy calls, and, with one last longing look at Mina, pushes out to the front of the shop.

Jonathon stands there in a heavy coat, a crooked smile on his face. “Funny, I’ve never actually been in here.”

“What do you need, Jonathon?” Lucy asks, hoping the desperation in her voice isn’t evident.

“Some flowers, of course,” he says, and Lucy reaches for her shears.

“Flowers. Right.”

“Not for me, you see. For Mina. For my wife. She’s…” he trails off, and guilt rings empty through Lucy’s stomach. Reality has set in, and it isn’t pretty. “Lately, she’s just been a bit… I don’t know. But you know what they say about flowers, and all, so I thought maybe one of your finest arrangements.”

“’Course.” Lucy moves out from behind the counter, trying to hide her shaking hands. “What does she like?”

“You know what she likes,” Jonathon says, and for a terrifying moment Lucy thinks she can see something deeper in his eyes. But it’s gone as soon as it appeared, and he clears his throat. “Lilies. She likes lilies.”

“Right.” Lucy goes to work cutting some lilies, hoping that if she busies her hands, her mind will follow.

“How was the football the other night?” Jonathon asks absentmindedly, and Lucy shrugs in what she hopes is a show of nonchalance.

“All right. An experience, I suppose.”

“And Mina, she didn’t… She didn’t say anything, I suppose, did she? About me, or…” Jonathon plays with a stray hydrangea bloom. “God. I just think I’m doing something wrong, is all. I mean, that’s what I think. And if she said what it is… then I can stop it, or fix it, or whatever. And then we can… we can be like before.” He speaks his last words to the ground, mumbled. “We can go back to being like before.”

Lucy sucks in a deep breath and ties the bouquet. “She didn’t say anything.” She hands them over. Jonathon reaches for his wallet, but she shakes her head. “On the house.”

As he’s turning to leave, she calls, “You should ask her, you know. Not me.”

“Well, I can’t ask Mina.” Jonathon chuckles, and it almost seems like he believes it. “That’s way too scary.” 

“Why?”

He pauses.

“What if there is?”

The second he’s gone, Lucy runs to the back room, but Mina is gone, and the beads covering the open window are swaying.

\---

Lucy finds Mina in the park, walking briskly in the fading afternoon cold. “Mina,” she calls, but the brunette is determined. “Mina! Wait!”

“Lucy, please!” Mina breathes, and it stops Lucy dead in her tracks. “What do you want me to say? I heard him. I heard him talk, and he’s blaming himself, and I don’t know how… I don’t know how to…”

Lucy knows what she can’t say. _I don’t know how to tell him why._ “You can put an end to this,” she suggests, and though her heart regrets it as soon as it’s out of her mouth, her mind knows it’s the right thing to say. 

“How?”

“Tell me to go.” The look that flashes across Mina’s face is one of pain, and Lucy is sure she echoes it. “Tell me that’s what you want, and I will walk away and you will never see me again.” Mina just stares into her eyes.

“Is that what you want?”

“I want you.” The words are poison, they’re landmines, they’re breaking every rule, but still, Lucy says them. It’s reckless, it’s foolish, but it’s so, so true.

“Lucy…”

“I know. I know.” Lucy leans forward, taking Mina into her arms, and in that moment, she feels it. She feels the end, barreling towards them at lightspeed, and she feels herself accepting it. “We’ll be okay,” she whispers into Mina’s hair, and they both know she’s lying.

“Don’t forget me,” Lucy whispers.

“I won’t remember anything else,” Mina whispers back, and it’s the truth.

\---

When Mina gets home, Jonathon isn’t there. It gives her plenty of time to pace, to fret, to worry and wear her hands dry. When she finally hears the key in the lock, just after dark, her heart jackhammers, and she faces the door.

Jonathon stumbles in, drunk off his arse. Mina’s face falls. “Jonathon, where have you been?”

“I…” Jonathon can’t seem to summon words at the moment. “I have been drinking.”

Despite it all, it still brings a fond smile to Mina’s face. “I can see that.”

Jonathon staggers to the sink, uneven on his feet. “I’ll just get some water.”

Mina follows him. “Jonathon…”

“Never fails!” Jonathon says, pouring himself a tall glass from the tap. “Eight pints before bed, and next day, you’re feeling no pain.”

Mina sighs. “I need to talk to you, Jonathon.”

He nods solemnly. “Good. Talking good.” Still tripping, he makes his way to the couch, glass in hand. Mina follows him, stomach in knots.

Jonathon collapses on his back, loosening his tie. “Go ahead, love. ‘m listening.”

Mina stares at the ceiling, unable to meet his eyes. “I have to talk to you because… because this thing happened. I wasn’t looking for it, it just… It just happened, and although it’s over… You have a right to know.” She stops her pacing, facing away from the couch. She can feel the tears at the corners of her eyes.

“I went crazy, Jonathon,” she whispers. “I went crazy for someone and it wasn’t you.”

“I’m sorry,” she continues. “I’m so very sorry, and… oh, please believe me…” she turns, and sees Jonathon, eyes closed, passed out. Mina darts forward, almost ready to throw up. “Jonathon, no. Please, don’t be asleep. I can’t… I can’t say this more than once.” She swallows hard. “I’m staying, did I say that? I wouldn’t… I couldn’t leave you. You’re my best friend. It was enough before, and it will be enough again.” She presses a tender kiss to his forehead, and when he doesn’t move, she stands quickly and moves towards the bedroom, muffling her sobs in her sleeve.

She misses his eyes open once she’s out of the room.

\---

It’s raining, which feels pretty appropriate.

Lucy sits at her counter. She stews. She shoos away customers, including one particularly assholic man who wanted a single hydrangea as a breakup plant. She fiddles with plants, unravels a pair of gloves with her antsy fingers, itches to call Mina. She almost calls her mother, god forbid, but thinks better of it at the last second.

Everything has gone to shit, and London feels suddenly suffocating. She can’t go a second without seeing Mina’s blue eyes in her mind. She has to get away.

She sobs into her sweater, and switches the _open_ sign to _closed._

\---

Mina opens another gift (a book on anatomy from her father) and can barely force a smile on her face.

Dr. Murray glances at the centerpiece he’d set on the table. “You know, this would have been much nicer if your friend Lucy had done it. But when I called over there, she told me she wasn’t taking any more orders. Said she’s going out of town.”

“She is?” Mina asks, unable to hide the tone of her voice. She thinks she sees Jonathon scoff out of the corner of her eye. “For how long?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Long enough, I suppose.” Dr. Murray stands and moves to the kitchen. “Anyone for pudding?”

Mina fiddles with the corner of the book, and suddenly, Jonathon stands. “Yeah, I can’t do this anymore.”

“Jonathon…” Mina says, standing, but he turns from putting on his coat to glare at her. 

“I can’t, Mina. I can’t just sit there while you…”

“I’m not going to leave you!” Mina yells, fists clenched. Her heart is racing; she’s been thrust into a moment she fears so deeply, and it all feels very abrupt.

“If you respect me at all, Mina, that’s exactly what you will do.” Jonathon turns to head out the door, and though Mina tries to stop him, he doesn’t seem to care.

Dr. Murray stands at the door to the kitchen, holding a bowl of pudding. “Darling?”

Mina shakes her head, then follows Jonathon out to the driveway. “Jonathon, wait,” she calls, but he shakes his head. “Don’t… Please don’t walk away from me!”

“Yeah, keep saying that. Pretend this is my choice.”

“What-”

“Come on, Mina, we both know you would have left me in the end anyway!” Jonathon whips around, and the anger in his eyes is almost primal. Mina steps back, unsure, suddenly.

“You know, I wanted you to be happy.” Jonathon sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “More than anything, I wanted to be the cause of happiness in you. But if I’m not, then I can’t stand in the way.” He reaches a hand up to hold her cheek, and there’s an air of finality to it. “Because what you’re feeling now, Mina, is the unstoppable force.” He breathes.

“Which means that I’ve got to move.”

Mina watches him go, then turns listlessly back inside and finds her father in the kitchen.

“I heard,” he says, placing a kind hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“No,” she says, “not at all.”

Dr. Murray sits, and clasps her hands in his. “Tell me.”

So she does. She tells him everything, from the wedding to the football game to the perfect, awful kiss. When she’s finished, and wiping her eyes, Dr. Murray smiles understandingly.

“Do you love this girl?” He asks her, and Mina takes a deep breath.

“No,” she says. It’s not the truth, though. “Maybe,” she concedes, and then, when she can’t take it anymore, “yes.”

Dr. Murray presses a scratchy kiss to her hands. “That’s what I thought.” He smiled. “A love like that, that transcends all that you thought you knew… that is a love worth fighting for, my dear.” He looks straight into her soul, like he always has, and she feels his advice resonate through her like an echo. “Follow your heart.”

Mina thinks for a moment.

“Can I borrow your car?”

“I’ll drive.”

\---

Lucy hardly thought anything of it when she decided to fly off to Spain for a long while. She had friends from uni living out there, and while the sunny weather would be hell and she’d probably long for home, anything was better than staring at the phone, wishing she could call Mina for the littlest things.

She had to get out of the city.

She’s packing up her car for the flight when a familiar blonde head passes into her view.

“Alistair,” she breathes, and he frowns.

“So it is you, isn’t it? Jonathon didn’t tell who, but I figured it out.” Lucy bites her lip, stares him directly in the eye. “You bloody dumb idiot.”

“Don’t start, Alistair,” she mutters, pushing past him.

“Don’t start? Are you kidding me? Her husband calls me in the middle of the night, pissed, and he’s busted! He’s crying that she’s gone and fucking _cheated,_ just like that!”

“Just get out, please,” Lucy says, hefting another bag into her car. She pretends she’s annoyed, but really she’s afraid he’ll see her cry.

“What was that thing you said? Don’t mess with other couples?” Alistair shakes his head with a scoff. “You really stuck to that one good, didn’t you?”

He turns on a heel, walks off, and Lucy knows he was right.

She knows, and that’s why it hurts.

In the end, she has to drive. She heads for the airport, mindless of the traffic. All she can see are the tears blurring her eyes.

\---

They pass Lucy’s shop, but it’s dark and there’s no one parked outside. Mina’s next best shot is the airport, but they hit traffic just before the roundabout, and there doesn’t seem to be an end to it anywhere. Running fast out of ideas, Mina reaches for her phone and dials Lucy’s number, still memorized.

“Hello?”

“Lucy, it’s me. Listen, we have to talk. Everything’s changed, and-”

“There’s nothing to say, Mina. We can’t. We just… we just can’t.” She might say something else, but the annoying sound of a voice singing a Turtles song loudly drowns it out. “Goodbye.”

“Lucy, wait-” But she hears the dial tone. Lucy is gone.

Dr. Murray looks over. “She’ll be back,” he says. “She’ll be back, and we’ll get everything sorted.”

Mina shakes her head. “No, we won’t. It’s over.”

Everything is silent, until something tugs at her consciousness.

Singing.

A biker zips through traffic, singing a Turtles song at the top of his lungs. The same biker, in fact, that Mina had heard over the phone.

“That singing,” she whispers almost reverently. “I’ve heard that singing before.”

With a sudden single-minded focus, Mina clambers out the window and onto the roof, barley hearing her father telling her to mind the car. She searches, but there’s no car that looks familiar enough, and she can’t see Lucy’s blonde hair anywhere.

She considers yelling, and suddenly, she’s back in the stands at the football game, with Lucy’s arms wrapped around her. She remembers the way they had yelled, the way it worked. She remembers Lucy telling her to fill her mouth with sound, her soft, gloved hands on Mina’s stomach, burning her through three layers of clothing.

She places her hands on her diaphragm, breathes deep, and yells.

Lucy’s name catches only the attention of the surrounding drivers, who stare at her like she’s gone mad, and maybe she has. She has to try something else, something Lucy will hear and recognize.

A thought comes to her mind, so ridiculous it almost makes her laugh. But she’s desperate and she’ll try anything, so she tightens her grip on her diaphragm, and yells, as loud as she can.

“YOU’RE A WANKER, NUMBER NINE!”

Heads turn, but the only one that matters is Lucy’s. And, almost too good to be true, a few cars up, a door opens and Lucy’s blonde head pops out. She scrambles on top of a nearby piece of construction equipment, breathless, flushed, and grinning.

“I can do this!” Mina shouts, and she can see Lucy’s eyes light up over the row of cars. “I can do this!”

Without a word, they both clamber down from their perches and run toward each other, meeting in the mess of cars. Lucy’s hands go to Mina’s face, cradling her cheeks, and Mina’s hands card through blonde locks. They lean in almost simultaneously, their lips sliding together as if no time has passed.

As if they belong together.

\---

“God fucking damn it! Where is that bloody flower crown?”

The last thing anyone would have expected from Lucy Westenra was that she would be a bridezilla, but alas, she had been downright mad about this wedding, from inception to execution. Every detail was meticulously planned, from flowers (courtesy of Lucy’s own shop) to food, and so far, it was all going off perfectly well.

Dr. Murray lingers in the doorway, watching Lucy scramble to find her hairpiece. “It’s on the dresser,” he chuckles, observing as she settles it on her head, taking a deep breath.

“Everything will be alright, darling,” he says, walking over to place two hands on Lucy’s shoulders. They immediately relax. “Everything will be perfectly fine.”

Lucy watches them in the mirror, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, and not for the first time she’s glad she chose a waterproof mascara. “I never thought I wanted this,” she breathes out, watching Dr. Murray’s face tick into a smile.

He turns her towards him, and she looks up into his eyes. In the past year, he had become a friend and a confidant to the both of them, during the hard time when Mina had started working on her degree again, during the spring when they had drifted out of the honeymoon phase and into the very real complications of a full-on relationship, during all the late nights and scary thoughts and fears while planning the wedding. He was, truly, the best stand-in parent Lucy could have asked for, especially after Minerva practically disowned her when she announced her engagement.

“Sometimes,” Dr. Murray says, wiping a tear from Lucy’s eye, “the people and places we are meant for take us by surprise.”

He wraps her up in a hug, and Lucy knows he’s right.

\---

She’s married.

She’s _married._

(For the second time.)

As Mina presses kiss after kiss to Lucy’s lips, stained with icing from their all-too-extravagant cake, as she wraps her arms around her wife’s (!) waist, as she dances like she’s never danced before, she can’t stop thinking about it.

This time, there’s no uncertainty. There’s no benign wave of settling for something. There’s no regret, no fear, no doubt. There’s only Lucy, shining under the low light of the ballroom, and the way their hands intertwine and don’t separate the whole night. There’s only her wife, stunning and perfect and gleeful, smile so wide it threatens to split her face.

There’s only them, and the years and years of story they have left to tell together.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me @amessofgaywords on twitter.


End file.
